


If Wishes Were

by Lysippe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysippe/pseuds/Lysippe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 76th Hunger games, the breakdown of Everlark, and one very earnestly fucked up Katniss. Buildup to Joniss - canon-compliant until the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Good Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'm planning on writing this as a series of one-shots, and this is just the first one, so these are going to probably vary in length, content, and rating. Don't hate me. I'm tagging this as Joniss now because that's where it's going, it just isn't there yet. But it will be in two or three chapters, I promise. But the good news is I have future chapters written in my head already, so the wait probably won't be too terribly long, and you'll get to see the organic growth of Joniss as written by my angst-fest of a brain. :D

Peeta doesn’t speak to her when the Capitol’s children are reaped. Instead, he sits on the far end of their couch, limbs carefully tucked away so no part of him touches Katniss. Every time a name is called, every time a child who never even had to think about the possibility of this horror encroaching on their lives walks shakily up to the stage, Peeta looks like he is going to vomit. 

Katniss feels like she might, too.

Snow’s granddaughter is called. Of course she is. Hers was probably the only name in that bowl. Because what better way to signal the end of an era than with the murder of a brutal dictator’s precious moppet of a granddaughter? 

As she walks up to the stage, Katniss immediately recognizes the intricate braid in her blonde hair. And when she tells her escort - who looks vaguely ill herself - in a clear yet shaky voice that she is twelve years old, Katniss is hit by a wave of violent nausea.

Prim.

This girl looks just like _Prim_ , with her too-grown-up dress and her too-grown-up braid and her too-grown-up eyes that say she knows her death is a punishment meant for someone else. This girl could have _been_ Prim, if it weren’t for a slight circumstance of birth.

But none of that matters, because in a few short weeks, they will both be dead, and Katniss will have evened her debt with Snow and with Coin and with the world.

In a few short weeks, 23 Capitol children will be dead, and one will join the ranks of those who wish they were.

She sits in their couch, wanting desperately to reach out, for Peeta or Prim or _anyone who might give one single fuck_ about this. But of course, no one is there. 

Only the little voice in the back of her mind, saying, “If it was good enough for Prim, it’s good enough for her.”

And Katniss is sickened by the fact that she believes it.

 


	2. All It Takes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I wasn't planning on actually getting into the *games* part of this fic, but it just sort of happened. So yes, there's some gore in this chapter. Light gore, but still gore. That being said, it's mostly me firebombing the Everlark relationship, which I'll be honest, was kinda fun but also really, horribly difficult. A lot more than I anticipated. Hence why it took so damn long. (Also it's finals week and I'm genuinely suspicious that one of my professors is just trying to give us all aneurisms.)

Snow's granddaughter survives the bloodbath. She survives a rockslide, and a close brush with some of the older tributes who have formed their own sort of career pack, and even manages to work her way out of another tribute's snare before he comes back for her. One week in, and they are down to the final eight. She is much thinner, and much less poised, but still very much alive. As it turns out, she is quick and clever and far less afraid to get her hands dirty than Katniss had anticipated. 

And the media loves her. They pan to her any chance they get. Redoing her braid. Sleeping in the hollow of a dead tree. Sharpening the tiny knife that she fortuitously managed to snatch out of a dead tribute’s eye socket right before his body was removed. She is the nation's darling, and Katniss knows the girl won't win, and that it is completely antithetical to this entire spectacle to want Snow's granddaughter to live, but even she feels herself falling under the girl's spell just a little.

"You killed them, you know."

It's the first real thing Peeta has said to her since the games began, and the words hit her with the force of a train.

 "What did you say?" Katniss chokes out.

"I said, you killed them. You murdered those kids. You're more responsible for their deaths than for anyone you killed in the arena."

Peeta always knows what to say to make people feel what he wants them to. And right now, Katniss realizes, he wants her to hurt. He wants her to feel what he has felt every day since that awful vote.

She doesn't know what to say. Feeble excuses run through her mind, all of the reasons she had felt justified in her decision in the moment.

_They killed so many of us._

_I needed to even the score._

_For Rue, and Wiress, and you and me and Haymitch and Finnick and Annie and Johanna, who lost her only two friends because of them._

_Because they don't_ deserve _to be treated fairly._

But in the end, all she can say is, "They killed Prim."

They didn't. Coin killed Prim. But she knows Peeta knows what she means - that it was the Capitol's fault any of this ever happened. They may not have dropped the bombs that took her sister's life, but that didn't make them any less responsible.

"And you killed them. You sent their children into the Arena to die so you could have a taste of revenge. You sentenced them to death, and for what? What did any of this accomplish? Do you feel better for it?"

"No," she whispers, her voice breaking along with what was left of her heart. Better is the last thing she feels. "I feel terrible."

"You should." There is a sudden hardness in Peeta's voice that wasn't there before. That hasn't been there since District 13 and the hijacking and the beginning of the end of his affection for her. "Because in the end, you're no different than Snow. Sending a message to the Capitol by killing their children. It's sick, Katniss. It's just sick."

"Then why are you still watching?" Katniss asks, forcing a sharp edge into her voice in an attempt to mask the hurt.

"Because we did this," Peeta says, turning back to the screen as it flashes to a tall, thin girl with dark hair and a pointed nose tip-toeing across a carpet of pine needles toward the boy sleeping fitfully just within eyesight. He has tucked himself carefully into some thick bushes, but sometime during his slumber, his booted foot found its way into the clearing. 

The girl, who Katniss recognizes from the reaping as the daughter of one of Snow's advisors, carefully peels away the branches. She raises the machete in her left hand, takes a deep, steadying breath, and swings downward with the force of her entire body. It's a clumsy, ungraceful strike, but it hits the boy's neck, and his eyes fly open for one brief, horrific moment.

Katniss knows it's coming, but the sound of the canon firing still makes her jump in her seat. She turns to look at Peeta, who is sitting stone faced across from her. Her hands are shaking and her heart is painfully tight in her chest, but she doesn't dare reach out to him.

'We sent them in there to die," he says, avoiding her gaze, "and the very least we can do is own that."

But he doesn't mean "we." What he really means is that _she_ sent them in, and _he_ is taking responsibility for it. To Peeta, Katniss has done the unforgivable. She has turned herself into everything he fought against, in the name of revenge, and she knows that Peeta will never look at her the same way again. 


	3. More Than Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I suck for taking so long to update this. I have no excuse other than that I wasn't quite certain how I wanted this to go for this part of the fic. Well, that and finals, which ended two weeks ago and kicked my ever-loving ass. Don't go to grad school, kiddies. It makes you cry. 
> 
> Anyway, I tried to make up for it by making this one longer. And by longer, I mean over a thousand words. Most of the other chapters won't be this long, I just really enjoy writing Haymitch.

The next day, she sneaks out of bed long before the sun shows any inkling of rising. Peeta sleeps through most nights, albeit fitfully, but Katniss feels as though she hasn't gotten any rest in months.

Boots laced and hair braided, she makes her way down the road to Haymitch's house. It's hardly an adequate hiding place, but Peeta has shown no more inclination to talk to Haymitch than to her lately, so she figures it's fine. These days, it seems, they are both monsters in his eyes.

Katniss knocks as hard as she can. Haymitch will either be passed out, or suffering a similar bout of insomnia, but it will take a great racket to get him to the door either way.

"Answer the door!" She shouts, when Haymitch fails to appear after several minutes. "Answer the goddamn door, I'm freezing out here!"

Silence.

It's raining, and her patience is wearing thinner than it usually is with Haymitch. "I'm not going away, you know! I'll break your window if you don't let me in." She would, too. If Haymitch wants to make her stand out here like an idiot, she's more than happy to let herself in. And of course, just as she starts looking around for a nice rock to throw, the door opens.

"Mornin', sweetheart."

That lazy drawl, and the smell of alcohol that permeates the air along with it, makes Katniss want to hit him. "Did you really need to leave me out here that long?" She snarls, cold and wet and wondering furiously if Haymitch is actually a better choice of company than Peeta.

Haymitch steps aside, granting her entrance with a sweeping gesture as though he's some kind of gentleman. "Need to?" he says. "No. But you've always been more tolerable when you're riled up, so I thought I would help you along the way."

"Gosh, thanks," Katniss scowls, making a beeline for Haymitch's closet and the warm, dry clothes inside it.

"Don't take anything nice," Haymitch calls after her. "And bring a new bottle down while you're at it!"

"Like you have anything nice," Katniss shouts down the stairs. "And you can get your own damn whiskey. You need the exercise."

It takes a few minutes, but Katniss succeeds in finding the one shirt in Haymitch's closet that the smell of booze and vomit hasn't permeated too thoroughly. She strips and redresses in a matter of seconds, fastening the last button right as Haymitch appears at the door, presumably to retrieve the alcohol Katniss refused him.

"So nice of you to pay me a visit, princess." His smile is every bit as condescending as it was the day they met. "But what brings you to my neck of the woods? Not like you to visit unannounced. Or at all."

Whether or not Haymitch is actually upset about this, Katniss isn't sure, but the truth in his words stings nonetheless. Haymitch has pulled through for her more times than she can count, and far beyond what anyone could have expected. He was never pleasant about it, to be sure, but he had done it nonetheless. Even when she neither wanted nor deserved it. The least she could have done is visit from time to time, no matter how unpleasant he is. Still, she knows better than to take his bait.

"Well, you aren't exactly a stellar host. Effie would be horrified."

"Etiquette is overrated, as I'm sure you're aware," Haymitch says. Then, as an afterthought, he extends the bottle toward her. "Sip?"

Katniss knows as she reaches for the bottle that she is going to hate this, and she does. The whiskey tastes like burnt rubber, and the strength of it makes her shudder. But she is cold right down to her bones, and the whiskey is so warm going down that she takes another, bigger sip, then another, and another, until Haymitch pries the bottle from her fingers.

"That's enough for now," he says firmly, swatting her hand away roughly as she reaches back for the bottle.

"I'm fine," Katniss tries to insist, but she can hear her words slurring together, and her legs are already starting to shake. And she hates that feeling, but not nearly as much as she hates the coldness inside of her.

"Hell you are," Haymitch says gruffly, shoving her forward just hard enough that she stumbles, but not so hard that she falls down. "You always were a lightweight."

"Go to hell." It's not her most eloquent comeback, but it's better than nothing.

"Already there, sweetheart." Haymitch grabs her arm and holds her upright as he guides her down the stairs. "Now let's get you sitting down and watered up, before someone sees you like this and gets me in trouble."

By someone, of course, he means Peeta.

"No one's going to see me," she says flatly. "'Cept you, and you're not going to tell anyone you got a half-naked teenage girl drunk, are you?"

"Hey, now," Haymitch says, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. "You did that yourself."

"Sure did," she agrees, flopping down onto the sofa. "But it's not like you get to judge."

"Damn right I get to judge. I know why I drink. Got nothing better for me. But you? You got your mother, and you got the boy. Hell, you even got that cat of yours. What you don't have, is a good reason to be shitfaced on my couch, drinking me out of house and home at five in the morning."

Katniss forces herself up, snatches the bottle off the table, and takes another long slug. She gags, and hates herself for it. "My mother wishes I had died instead of Prim. And Peeta hates me. So, yeah, I think I've got a reason."

"And the cat?"

"I hate that stupid cat."

"And I," Haymitch says l, snatching the bottle out of her hands once more and holding it out of reach, "hate you when you're drunk. You're more miserable than I am, but at least I'm aware of it."

Katniss simply glowers at him from her corner of the couch. She balls her fingers inside the long sleeves of her newly acquired shirt and tucks her legs in, trying to contain what little warmth is still inside her.

"So, tell me," Haymitch continues, wholly unperturbed. "What did you do that made Peeta hate you? Or did he just realize that he's too good for you in every imaginable way?"

The words cut through Katniss, and it takes her a moment to find her voice. "What, no attempts at reassuring me that he doesn't hate me?"

"Of course Peeta doesn't hate you." Haymitch waves a hand dismissively in her direction. "He's far too good for that. So, if you'll allow me to rephrase, what made Peeta fall out of love with you?"

Katniss can't help feeling as though those words should hurt her far more than they do. Shouldn't it hurt when the person who loves you, stops? "Well," she says slowly, "I guess he just isn't into murderers, after all."

Haymitch lets out a deep breath and shakes his head. "Doubt he ever was, you know. He just got it into his head that you weren't one."

"He was wrong," Katniss says stiffly. "I kept trying to tell him he was wrong, and he wouldn't listen."

"'Course he wouldn't, sweetheart. No one listens to sense when they're in love."

"Like you would know."

He shrugs. "Seen it a couple times. Don't need to live it. Love makes people stupid."

"So you think it was stupid? Falling in love with me?" Katniss asks.

"Yeah, I do."

She takes another sip of whiskey, and shudders less this time. "So do I."

They sit in silence, then, for several hours, sharing the bottle. Haymitch has clearly given up on keeping her sober, and Katniss is glad. She doesn't need a other conscience. Peeta is more than enough.

 


	4. Communication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I suck. I lost this chapter twice and was too dejected to write it again for ages both times, because I really liked it each time. But I finally got my head out of my ass and did it, so go me?

Peeta always used to want to talk to Katniss about everything. About Prim, and her nightmares, and all of the little broken bits inside that Katniss just wanted to pretend didn’t exist. She hated it, but she also knew that that was just who Peeta was. He really believed that if they just talked things through, they could move on.

Katniss knew from day one that that wasn’t how it worked.

These days, every word she speaks feels like it is strangling her. The words take form in her mind - blood pooling on Rue’s stomach; Finnick being torn limb from limb; Peeta’s hands around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter and… she can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t think.

But now, Peeta doesn’t want to talk at all. And it’s not like Katniss does or anything - at least, not to him - but she almost hates the silence more.

Almost.

As Effie would say, she and Peeta don’t communicate effectively.

\- - -

She and Haymitch don’t communicate at all.

She shows up at his house every morning before sunup, because Haymitch is willing to indulge her lie. They turn on the TV, and sit in front of it all day, pretending not to watch and pretending not to care. They don’t talk, and the silence is neither comfortable nor not. There is no need for words between them, and their peace is too brittle to chance it anyway. Instead, they sit in a void of silence that somehow feels so much less oppressive than the silence Katniss sits through with Peeta, and she feels like she should probably feel worse about that than she does.

But Haymitch knows her better than Peeta. He never had any delusions about her. He never thought that she was something she wasn’t, and he never wanted her to be. Katniss helps herself to his home, his food, and his company, but Haymitch doesn’t want to talk to her, and she doesn’t want to talk to him.

They are alone, together.

\- - -

But Johanna communicates with Haymitch.

Sort of.

Katniss finds the letters the day Snow’s granddaughter finally dies. The Capitol tributes drop slower than District kids did. They are less brutal, less desperate, less skilled, and it shows. There is no promise of greatness for whichever one of them emerges from the Arena, and they know it. Nonetheless, Katniss can’t help feeling that it is somewhat of an indictment of the Capitol that Snow’s granddaughter makes it to the final four.

In the end, it’s dehydration that does her in. They watch a recap for the third time that day of her struggling to keep herself upright long enough to find shelter, lips cracked and caked in dried blood, too delirious to think, until a raised root sends her crashing to the ground, too weak to even try to make herself get up. White-Blonde hair falls limply over her shoulder as her body gives up and her eyes close.

They never open again.

Haymitch gives her a pained look and tells her he thinks it’s a kinder death. 

Katniss is pretty sure he’s thinking of Maysilee Donner, with dozens of sharp beaks poking through her neck. But _she_ is thinking of herself, so parched it hurt to breathe, scrambling towards anywhere that might possibly have something to nourish her. 

She tells him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

The letters are lying innocuously on the kitchen table atop their torn envelopes, as though it makes perfect sense for them to be there.

Except it doesn’t, because Johanna and Haymitch aren’t friends. They aren’t even friendly. Their range of interactions typically spanned apathy to outright dislike, with the occasional dip into revulsion.

So, why is Johanna writing him letters?

Why _isn’t_ Johanna writing _her_ letters?

But sure enough, there is Johanna’s name on the envelope:

 

_To:_

_Abernathy, H._

_D-12, A-1_

_Victor’s Village_

 

_From:_

_Mason, J._

_D-4, A-1_

_Victor’s Village_

 

It occurs to Katniss that in the year since the war ended, this is the first time she has really thought of Johanna. She has thought about Finnick, and she heard from Annie, once. She has thought about Gale, and her mother, and Peeta and Haymitch, and she never _stops_ thinking about Prim.

But she never gave Johanna, once the only person she could almost call a friend, a second thought.

She wonders what that says about her.

Curiosity gets the better of her, and Katniss peeks inside the envelope at the top of the pile.

 

_H._

_Leaving 4. The baby is healthy, and Annie will be fine. I don’t know how Finnick lived like this. It’s too hot and there are no trees, and I hate the ocean. Going back to 7. Will write again with new address if house still standing._

_J._

 

The terseness of the letter both surprises Katniss and doesn’t. Johanna was never one to mince words, but why bother sending a letter if she wasn’t going to say anything? She is similarly unsurprised by Johanna’s handwriting. It is messy, sharp, and slanted, and only mostly legible. What does surprise her is how intimate this knowledge feels.

The letter is postmarked two weeks ago, and Katniss feels a twinge of disappointment when she realizes that none of the other letters contain an updated mailing address, but she grabs it anyway.

\- - -

“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been writing to Johanna?”

Haymitch opens one eye and lazily rolls himself into a sitting position on the couch. He looks somewhat stunned, though whether that is because this is the first consequential thing Katniss has said to him in over a week, or because she is opening admitting to violating his privacy, she isn’t quite sure.

“Didn’t think you cared,” he says casually. Then, after a pause, “Why _do_ you care?”

“She’s my-“ The words catch in her throat, and Katniss isn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence. She remembers Johanna at her hospital bed, swiping her morphling; Johanna standing in front of the bathroom mirror in their compartment, holding a wet rag as though it were the vilest thing imaginable; Johanna in the hospital, bony fingers gripping a pathetic bag of pine needles, forcing out the words.

_“You have to kill him.”_

“Has she ever mentioned me?” She hopes against hope that Haymitch won’t hear the desperation in her voice, but she knows he will.

 “You know me better than that, princess,” Haymitch says casually. “Should probably know her better, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Haymitch sighs and shifts on the couch, making room for her. “We’re not friends, me and Johanna. You know that. She sends me updates. About the western districts. About Annie. Nothing personal.”

“Oh,” Katniss says, letting out a long breath. “And do you send her news?”

“Not much news in Twelve, Katniss,” Haymitch says, almost gently. “That’s why I stayed.”

“Yeah.”

But Katniss keeps a close eye on Haymitch’s incoming mail from then on.


End file.
